Interesting. Four months ago, if you’d told me our first round opponent could be any of the following six, I’d have been mass producing stress train tickets at a discount price: San Jose, Vancouver, Minnesota, Dallas, Denver, Calgary.

Now? Only one team presents an opportunity for pain, in my opinion. And if the Wings can somehow beat Luongo, they’ll fall too. I’m thinking the first round brings with it a team that wouldn’t be there if the playoffs started today: Phoenix.

After a long period of economic dark days, Canadian NHL franchises are suddenly a hot commodity.

So what has changed?

Owners, academics, business journalists and financial experts say a number of factors have combined to make Canadian teams a better risk—namely the strong Canadian currency, the financial stability brought about by the 2005 collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between the players union and the league and, finally, a new kind of development model for NHL arenas that is seeing them built not as lonesome, stand-alone structures but as catalysts for larger commercial and residential developments in city cores.

Patrick Sharp was only too happy to re-sign with the Blackhawks for four more years.

Now, Sharp will be interested to see what happens this summer and if free agents feel as he does, that the Hawks are a franchise on the rise, making Chicago a prime destination.

“The way the organization treats the players is first class, and anyone that’s been to the city of Chicago knows what it’s all about,” Sharp said. “Attendance is growing at the United Center, the Hawks are on the way up, and hopefully that attracts some free agents that want to come to Chicago.”

The Flyers are believed to be at the top of Forsberg’s list and if Paul Holmgren can devise a suitable contract offer, Forsberg could be wearing orange and black as early as Valentine’s Day, when the Tampa Bay Lightning visit the Flyers at the Wachovia Center.

With a few tweaks, the Flyers can create between $2.5 million and $3 million in cap space. If they offer Forsberg $1 million to play the final 26 games (52 days) of the regular season, his prorated salary of $3.54 million would count against the cap.

If they offer him $750,000 to play the remainder of the season, $2.65 million would count against the cap.

Judging from Forsberg’s recent comments, he’ll want a contract that includes next season and perhaps another, taking him through the 2009-10 season. If that is the case, the aforementioned salary figures (between $2.6 million and $3.5 million) would likely count against the Flyers’ cap….

Which brings us back to our original question: Should the Flyers do it?

...Hell, Leonsis would have been better as far as his fellow owners were concerned to wait for a team to make an offer to Ovechkin, then match it.

He could then claim he was dragged kicking and screaming into doing such a thing, all the while proclaiming he is delighted to have Alex in the fold. To volunteer this kind of money seems bizarre. And with Ovechkin getting this much money and this much of the cap space, how the hell do you build a team around him?

And if you don’t build a team, how do you bring in fans and stop being a perpetual drain on the other the owners? In short, why are the rich teams putting up with this?

The Penguins now stand No. 2 overall in the East, seven points behind Ottawa, 2-0 losers to Tampa Bay last night - but for how long?

You don’t lose a player like Crosby without paying the price, just as the Senators are learning now that Dany Heatley is sidelined with a long-term injury.

The best Pittsburgh can hope for is that Crosby won’t be sidelined too long. The extent of the injury won’t be known for several days, but normally it’s measured in terms of weeks and even months - but you don’t need an MRI reading to understand how much Crosby is going to be missed.

He is the NHL’s golden boy. He is everything that is good about this game, but the Penguins aren’t the only losers. He sells tickets wherever the game is played, so teams in double-digit numbers are losers. Major sponsors of the game are losers.

Last year, the hosts of a popular home-makeover television show arrived at Henrik Zetterberg’s house in Bloomfield Hills to begin remodeling his kitchen. As cameras showed viewers the inside, hosts talked with Zetterberg and his girlfriend, singer/model Emma Andersson, about the project.

It was MTV “Cribs” meets IKEA. And almost no one saw it, at least not in the United States. The show, called “Room Service,” aired in Sweden, where Zetterberg grew up, and where he has become one of the most celebrated athletes.

Apparently it’s that time of year for those who cover and follow the NHL to let their imaginations run wild.

Time for the laundry list of asinine Alex Tanguay trade rumours out of Montreal and the ol’ Olli Jokinen speculation out of Florida.

This year, the pulp fiction is being spiced up locally by fabricated contract offers for Dion Phaneuf, manic mentions Mats Sundin could land here and even talk there is a snowball’s chance in hell Kristian Huselius will re-sign in Cowtown.

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